The American Association of Health Plans (AAHP) and the Prudential Center for Health Care Research (PCHCR) are proposing a conference on managed care and tobacco to work more closely with AHCPR to broaden understanding, dissemination and adoption of the agency's recently released tobacco control guidelines. One of the key objectives of the conference is to educate managed care staff about the AHCPR guidelines for the identification and treatment of tobacco use and addiction, identify implementation challenges, and forge effective solution. In addition, the conference will serve several other purposes including: Providing opportunities for collaboration on tobacco issues between health plans; providing opportunities for collaboration between public health and managed health plans; and discussing what is known and unknown relevant to tobacco issues in managed care delivery systems.